OVERVIEW

The intention of this patent summary is to identify the areas relevant to the development of catalysts and processes for hydroprocessing of heavy petroleum feeds, which are covered by patents, rather than to give an exhaustive review of the subject. For this purpose, the focus has only been on the patents issued by the US Patent office during the last two decades. In this case, a large representation by the non-US inventors has been noted. Therefore, it is believed that this database is the largest and the most comprehensive collection of patents in the world. Because of its extent, this database may adequately reflect the activities related to the development of the catalysts and catalytic systems for upgrading heavy petroleum feeds with emphasis on the industrial applications.

The patent literature indicates the efforts to improve performance of the conventional catalysts and to develop novel catalysts, as well as to optimize existing and/or to design the new process configurations, suitable for hydroprocessing of the problematic feeds. It has been noted that the performance of conventional catalysts could be improved by the addition of modifiers and by using different supports, as well as by varying conditions, during the catalyst preparation. A number of the non-conventional catalysts have been patented as well. From the process development point of view, the attention has been paid to guard beds, mixed and layer beds, multibed and multistage systems, as well as to novel systems, and reactors. It has been observed that, in the patent literature,...